TweetMeme, the quickly-growing site that lists the most popular links on Twitter, is launching an overhauled version today that the startup is calling TweetMeme V2. The company says that today’s release includes “a total rewrite” of its scoring system, which will likely affect how quickly and what type of stories appear on the site.

Given that the site isn’t live yet we can’t test the new engine, but TweetMeme says that the new ranking engine will provide “more varied and better quality content”, which will be helped in part by a new kudos scoring system that can change the weight of individual Twitter users. The site is also introducing an improved filtering engine, a new comment system (you’ll now be able to take a comment on the site and retweet it), and a flagging system that lets users bury bad entries. A more robust analytics package will also be appearing next week.

Another interesting note: TweetMeme is teaming with JS-Kit to add support for its real-time commenting engine Echo , which will now be able to import TweetMeme contents into blogs. TweetMeme will also begin promoting Echo, presumably in the hopes of having its reach widened as its comments appear in more blogs.

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This post was written by Frank Gruber, who cofounded TECH cocktail, a startup that looks to help people involved with technology connect at events, which it throws around the country. Tonight’s event is being held in Washington DC, where nine startups are presenting to tech enthusiasts from throughout the region.

Though situated in the heart of Government 2.0, the private sector in Washington, D.C. has been a wellspring of new startups each quarter. TECH cocktail, a community building organization, looks to help entrepreneurs by giving them a place to share their latest creations with the local technology community. The first couple of TECH cocktail events in Chicago were covered here in July and October 2006. Since then, TECH cocktails have been guzzled down like dirty martinis quarterly in D.C. and Chicago and annually in Boulder, Boston and other smaller technology communities.

TECH cocktail D.C. 6 is being held tonight and is supported by local companies like AOL, which will be showing off the new AIM product with its real-time lifestream. AOL is joined by Boalt, TransFS, Jess3, iStrategyLabs and a handful of other local supporters who help make it possible for TECH cocktail to promote the startup scene.

The start-ups demoing will include the following:

AddyMate a free web service that helps you manage & communicate with all your contacts across various web services, social networks & computers from one central connected address book that self-updates when you or your contacts change your personal information. It also offers various privacy settings to help group together family, friends, co-workers & others.

CostToDrive or C2G is an application that uses a “galculator” to help people quickly and easily discover how much it costs to drive anywhere in the United States. You might want to check with CostToDrive before you gas up the family truckster for a Sunday drive. There is also a CostToDrive iPhone application coming soon.

CYNCZ pronounced “syncz”, is a subscription-based contact aggregator that consolidates and synchronizes all your contacts from multiple address books so that you can access them at any time, from any device.

Grasshopr is an online civic platform enabling organizations and individuals to connect, communicate, and take action on issues at the federal, state and local level. Grasshopr makes connecting with your elected officials only a click away. Elected officials can also use Grasshopr to build authentic, sustainable connections with their constituents, inviting them to a town hall meeting, or polling them on current issues. Grasshopr is a free service but premium services may be on the way soon.

Keen Guides is a platform for delivering download-able short-format audio, video and audio tours. Keen Guides has a very nice iPhone application that makes getting audio and video tours a breeze. Keen Guides was a 2009 LaunchBox Digital company.

LegalRiver is an online marketplace dedicated to helping lawyers and businesses connect. It is a free, anonymous and non-binding tool, empowering businesses to solicit, compare, review and retain the right lawyer for their legal need. Legal River was a 2009 LaunchBox Digital company.

Seizure Tracker helps manage and track seizure activity. Created by the parents of a son born with epilepsy, the tool is dedicated to providing patients and their doctors with free comprehensive tools to help understand relationships between seizure activity and anti-epileptic medications. SeizureTracker.com allow patients to create personalized reports of logged seizure activity and medication history that can be easily shared with their medical team.

TapMetrics is a Northern-California & Washington D.C.-based start up that provides mobile application analytics to developers for the iPhone and other mobile platforms. Their developer analytics are focused on creating tools for application architects to better understand their users, continually improve their applications, and help their businesses grow. This could be a very popular analytics toolkit going forward. TapMetrics was a 2009 LaunchBox Digital company.

Thankfulfor is a microblogging site created by Shiny Heart Ventures focused on gratitude. In just 140 characters, users can share what they are thankful for, saving each item to their personal “journal” of thanks. Users can also be social by choosing to send each Thankfulfor post to their social network on Twitter, spreading the good vibes far and wide. What are you thankful for?

If you cannot make the D.C. event, look for TECH cocktail Boston 3 on September 3rd or work with us to bring TECH cocktail to your local tech community.

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Not that we had any doubt but Microsoft has made it official: Xbox 360 price cuts are coming Friday. The entry-level Arcade will remain at $200 while the top end Elite will drop to $300 from $400. The mid-range Pro (reduced to $250 from $300) will be phased out just as soon a they can eliminate stock. As a footnote to the announcement, Microsoft wants to remove all doubt about future project natal compatibility by saying it, "will work with every Xbox 360 sold today and tomorrow." So what's it going to be kids, PS3 Slim or Xbox 360? Blu-ray or Netflix?

[Via Reuters]

Filed under: Gaming

Xbox 360 price drops go global on Friday, it's official originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Major Chinese news portal 163 is reporting [Google machine translation] that Apple has finally signed a deal with China Unicom to bring the iPhone 3G to mainland China in October. This is huge news for Apple, which is now to enter a market with around 700 million mobile phone users, the biggest in the world (US: around 270 million).

Following months of negotiations between Apple and China Unicom, "industry insiders" are reportedly expecting an official announcement to be made by the country's second biggest mobile telecommunications company tomorrow in Hong Kong.

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